


(I'll always be waiting for you, so I look in your direction but you pay me no attention and you know how much I need you but) you never even see me

by MagusLibera



Series: fics I wrote in quarantine as I chilled [8]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Angst, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, F/M, Hiding a Pregnancy in Lockdown, I will eventually continue this, Idiots in Love, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, One Night Stands, Pining, Pregnancy, Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive (Arrow TV 2012), Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:14:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23461576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagusLibera/pseuds/MagusLibera
Summary: Almost three months ago, Oliver and Felicity slept together. Accidentally. Whilst drunk. And for the first time since they met fourteen years ago, when she was twelve years old and starting her scholarship at Starling Prep, they have not spoken since.Oliver cannot take it anymore, he misses her too much. He drives to her. To his Felicity. Just as Starling heads into a lockdown.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: fics I wrote in quarantine as I chilled [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672840
Comments: 60
Kudos: 151
Collections: Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive 2020





	(I'll always be waiting for you, so I look in your direction but you pay me no attention and you know how much I need you but) you never even see me

**Author's Note:**

> Oh yeah... I went there. 32 words from the song Shiver by Coldplay. I will enjoy me brief time at the top. If I don't post again, it's because Lexi and Cerys murdered me in my sleep. Violently.
> 
> I also combined Childhood Friends, Hiding a Pregnancy and Pining because that's just the kind of person I am. Please forgive me. I will almost definitely make it better! I've already planned out how.
> 
> I've adjusted the timeline on this so that it fits the ages better. Basically, this is set in 2015 not 2020 and the pandemic happened then not now. It doesn't really matter because there's no Arrow or anything so it could really be set any time but for some reason timeline details are important to my mind so I wanted to clarify that.
> 
> Also, this is my thirtieth fic! Yay for me! It is also my seventh fic this week, which I think I can be proud of because it's been an intense week and I've stayed up until midnight to write every single night. I'm going to bed now, promise. Maybe.

Oliver’s hands are shaking where they rest on the wheel of his car. His entire body is shaking, for that matter. Everything from the last few months – all of the pain, the confusion, the longing and wanting and needing – it has all boiled into this moment and the emotions are pouring from him. He cannot stay quiet anymore, he cannot sit and wait for her to contact him, agony in every moment without her.

Every second apart has been overwhelmed by memories. Their entire childhoods have passed through his mind, from the moment that he first saw her, a twelve year old freshman on a scholarship at Starling Preparatory High School to the moment that he brought her back to his apartment that night. He has analysed every second a thousand times, trying to pinpoint the moment that it all went wrong, the moment that he fucked up and lost her.

Most of it has been the vivid memories of her breathy gasps, her sweet moans, the warmth of her around him and under him and over him as their bodies moved together in the most exquisite of dances. It had been the best night of his life. Followed by the worst morning. Followed by almost three months of pure pain.

He has tried. He really has. With everything in him, he has tried to keep his distance, to respect her wishes and let her be. He has tried to move on, to forget and to do what she wants because all that he wants is for her to be happy, but he misses her. Every fibre of his being calls out for her and he cannot imagine a pain greater than this. They have not spent this long apart in all of the time that they have known one another. Fourteen years and the longest that they have been separated has been a few weeks in the year that he had started university and she had not. And during those weeks they had kept constant contact.

Not this. Not nearly three weeks where the only things he has heard from her has been second hand from John and their other friends.

Was it something that he did that night? Was it something before? Did he screw up right from the start and make it so that the only time she would ever want to be with him would be when drunk and in a dry spell?

He cannot fathom it. He has loved her for so long. He has been in love with her for almost a decade. But he would take it all back, he would stop that night from ever happening if it meant that she would keep him in her life. He does not care about being her boyfriend or lover or any of that. He just wants to be her friend, to be in her life. To be able to love her and care for her, even if he has to do most of that loving when she is not there.

And as the world goes to hell, he knows that if he waits any longer then he might lose his chance for another few months.

So he drives.

*************************

For the thousandth time that night – the millionth in the eighty days since she has seen him, since she spoke to him, since that night – Felicity reaches for her phone. She has been so strong, she has been able to keep herself from pressing send, from hitting call for this entire time. Even as her entire soul has cried out for him, she has kept herself from giving in.

But tonight is different. This evening, everything changed. Her entire world has been shaken, it has been flipped on its head. And, in any normal circumstances, the first person she would call would be Oliver. Without hesitation, she would call him and he would be by her side in seconds, holding her and caring for her in that special way that he always has. The way that got her into this mess in the first place.

And that is the crux of the issue. Because this is no normal situation. As much as her first instinct is to reach out for Oliver’s support she knows she cannot. Because he will need as much support as she will in this case. Because he is the exact person who she most needs to tell, but least wants to.

It has taken her three hours to get her head together enough to function. Since that call from Doctor Schwartz, since her entire life, her entire centre of gravity has shifted. She has been feeling strange for over a month now. Sickness and dizzy spells and a lack of appetite, an aversion to foods and smells including her beloved coffee and even to wine. She has dismissed it all as stress, even the lack of periods. Work is hard, and life is even harder since that night, since she lost Oliver. Her rock. Her best friend and main support system. But today, at work, she passed out. She collapsed in front of all of her colleagues, her employees who are still left in this crisis, and had been rushed to the hospital.

Doctor Schwartz had done some tests, telling her that she had low blood sugar and was dehydrated and ordering her onto a strict diet before sending her away with the promise to call about the results of the other tests that they were taking as a precaution. She had not expected anything, thinking that it was all just due to the poor nutrition she has given herself over the last few months and Doctor Schwartz had obviously had the same thoughts.

The doctor’s voice had been stunned when she kept her promise and called. When she informed Felicity that she is not bloated due to poor nutrition or a long awaited period, but due to the little miracle that is growing inside her. Her and Oliver’s baby. Eighty days grown.

She looks down at the barely there swell of her stomach. It is not much, it just looks like she has eaten a couple of large meals at most, but it is undeniably there. The evidence of their night together. The night where Oliver looked at her like she was his entire world, like all of his dreams were coming true. The night where she was able to fool herself into believing that it meant something, that she was more to him than just a friend who he could have fun with. The night where he worshipped every inch of her body before sliding himself inside and holding her close all night long. The night before she woke up, riding on cloud nine, only to be slammed all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench by reality.

The last few weeks have been the hardest. This pandemic has terrified her and she has wanted nothing more than to know that he is safe, that he is healthy and whilst she trusts John when he reassures her that Oliver is, she needs to hear it from his voice. But she does not want to impose, she does not want to make him feel awkward, she does not want to hear him as he tells her that it was just one night, just one time, just a drunken mistake that will never become something more.

Now though… now she knows that time is running out. She knows that she has to speak to him, to tell him what that night has produced, to let him know that it will never stay as just that night because it has created an entire lifetime. She is already angry and devastated all at once that she has missed out on the first eighty days of her child’s existence. Her perfect little piece of Oliver. She knows Oliver, she knows that it may not have been something that they planned or something that he wanted but he will still be the best father ever. He already is with William, he will adore their baby too. And she can live with that.

So she picks up her phone and she starts typing because she knows that he deserves to know. And that he would want to know as soon as possible, even if none of this is under the best circumstances.

*************************

When he parks up, Oliver finds himself frozen. That is it. That is her door. A door that he has seen and walked through countless times but now cannot even bring himself to walk towards. For the entire drive, he has been a nervous wreck, a ball of vibrating energy. But now it feels like all of that energy has rushed out of him, leaving him drained and scared. His hands clench and unclench at the wheel, flinching between restarting the engine and unlocking the door.

He wants to run. He wants to go to her. He wants everything.

He is afraid that he is about to lose it all forever.

He is afraid that, if he does nothing, it is all gone anyway.

He gets out of the car.

He walks up to the door.

He knocks.

*************************  
The text is short. A simple: Can you come over? Nothing else. Nothing that she has not said to him before. But it feels like everything. Her thumb feels heavy, incapable of tapping on the send icon but she knows she has to.

She holds her breath, sliding her thumb at a snail’s pace.

Knock.

She jumps. Her phone falling from her hand as her attention snaps to the door. It is late at night, who would be at her door this late? The knock was short, frantic, like somebody had forced themselves to do it but lost courage after that first sound.

She groans as she stands, shuffling over to the door with effort as she notices how stiff her joints are. A result of sitting motionless for hours, she supposes.

She unlocks the door.

And opens it.

*************************

She is so beautiful. Just as beautiful as the last time he saw her, hair tousled and lips red and beard burn all around her mouth and down her neck and absolutely perfect as she had fallen asleep in his arms for the third time, after their third time. And their final time.

Her lips are red now too, bright and plump in that way that he knows is a result of her biting them. In that way that he had recreated with his own teeth. She looks nervous, stressed and it pleases Oliver to know that, even after so long, he can still read her like an open book. She is still his Felicity. The girl he knows better than anyone, the girl who knows him better than anyone, the girl he loves. With everything in him.

He is stunned by the sight of her. Speech failing him and everything that he has thought of saying for the last eighty days flying from his head in a flash, leaving behind only one word, “Felicity.” He breathes it, unable and unwilling to keep the wonder and love and sheer adoration from his tone. It is unbelievable to him, that he is standing here before her and that she looks like that. He has seen her innumerable times, but she still takes his breath away, he still does not really believe that she could look as good as he remembers her looking whenever she is not right there in front of him, but every time he sees her she manages to look even better.

Her jaw drops. She does not say anything for so long that his anxiety rockets up to heights that he has never before experienced and then she says the one thing that will always make him melt, that will never fail to bring him to his knees whenever he hears it fall from her lips.

She says his name, “Oliver.”

Memories flash, the breathless moans as her fingers had scraped down his back, the surprised little squeals as he had nipped at her skin with his teeth, the exhausted sobs as she had come for the third time, wrapped tightly around him. It nearly makes him fall where he stands. Nearly, but the tension in his body keeps him upright and he is able to drag himself from the memories just enough to remember why he is there, “May I come in?” he asks. He has never been so formal with her. Not once. Not even when they were in the early stages of their friendship, a twelve year old genius and a sixteen year old screw up with the only thing they had in common being a few classes.

Felicity seems as uneasy as he is, awkwardness radiating from her as she silently nods and steps aside to make more than enough room for him to enter. Clearly not wanting to touch him. He is terrified that she is angry with him, that she will be mad for him not respecting her wishes and for coming to her anyway but he knows that he could not have let it go on for any longer. It was killing him to stay away. At the very least, he needs closure. He needs to hear it from her mouth that she never wants to see him again or he will never be able to continue with his life.

Oliver is not so arrogant as to think that he can ever move on from Felicity Smoak. He knows that it is simply not possible. She is his everything, she is it for him. The one. All of those things. If soulmates were real, she would be his even if he is not hers. But he is living in limbo and has been for the last eighty days. He cannot go on any longer without knowing, hoping but never truly believing that he will get her back, that they will be able to return to their easy smiles and comfortable friendship even after everything that happened between them.

He says none of that, “We need to talk.” She nods her reply.

*************************

He is here. He is actually here. In her house. In front of her. In front of her and their unborn child whom he knows nothing about, who is growing in her womb. All of her plans vanish. Fear overwhelms her and she clams up, knowing that she should just tell him and get it done with but all that she can think of is the way that her father left when she was seven. The hardship of the years that followed. All that she knows is how hard it was to grow up without him and she is petrified of Oliver rejecting her. Rejecting them, saying that he wants nothing to do with their baby and that one child from a one night stand is enough for him. Her mind fills with images of him saying that he never wants to see her or their baby ever again.

She knows exactly how irrational it is. Oliver would never do that, he would never abandon her or their child because he is Oliver and Oliver is the man she loves for a reason. A good one. Or a good thousand reasons, really. But the rational part of her brain is not the part that is in charge. No, the part of her brain that will always be the little girl who sat by her window every night for months, waiting for Daddy to come home, that is the part that is in charge. And she cannot let her baby become that child, left behind. Abandoned. So instead of calmly sitting Oliver down and informing him that he is a bit shy of seven months away from having his second baby, she just stands in front of him. Wide eyed and mute.

Oliver is not much better. Instead of starting the talk that he just said that they need to have, he is looking everywhere that is not her. It hurts. Knowing that he cannot even look at her. Thinking that the sight of her must be repulsive to him. But it is her reality. Just the two of them, their short, quick breaths and the faint sound of the TV that Felicity forgot was even on until this moment. It has been a chaotic few hours to be living in her mind.

Finally, Oliver forces his gaze down and onto her, taking a deep breath and opening his mouth, “Felicity-”

BREAKING NEWS

The sound of the TV cuts right across Oliver, stopping him in his tracks as the volume increases and an emergency broadcast begins, commanding both of their attentions.

As of five minutes ago, the president has ordered a country wide lockdown. Effective immediately. This comes as the numbers of cases almost doubled in the last twenty-four hours alone. Everybody is ordered to remain in place until further notice. If you are currently out or at work, you are ordered to return home immediately. Essential workers should expect communication very soon with specific orders but everybody else is to stay put. This includes anybody currently visiting a friend or family member. If you are displaced from your home, you may apply for permission to transfer online but cannot move without official approval and documentation. You must not leave your current location unless it is an emergency or you are collecting emergency supplies.

The broadcast cuts out, returning to the regularly scheduled programming. It takes Felicity a moment to process what has just happened. What it means.

When she does, it feels like her heart has stopped beating. Her lungs still, the breath freezing in her chest. She looks up at Oliver and sees that he has drawn the exact same conclusion as she has. He looks frightened, upset. She understands why.

The two of them are trapped. Together. Now. At a time when they have not talked in eighty days, when their night together is still hanging between them. When she is pregnant with his child and he does not know.

He deserves to know.

He does not deserve to be trapped with the mother of his child, whom he can barely stand to look at, for the foreseeable future.

He cannot know until he has the option leave again.

Felicity has to keep their little miracle a secret. No matter what.

For Oliver.

**Author's Note:**

> THEY'RE TRAPPED TOGETHER.
> 
> Obviously, Felicity is making a bad decision here. But a bad decision is a prerequisite for this hiding a pregnancy prompt and her bad decision making is coming from a place of trauma and a place of thinking she's being kind to Oliver because they're both idiots who needed to talk about their feelings for one another about a decade ago, so I hope you can forgive her!
> 
> I'm honestly so excited about these fics I'm planning to come back to. They're going to be so much fun to write (and read, I hope!)
> 
> Also, there was a 58 word version of this title. Just saying.
> 
> I'm on Twitter [@MagusLibera](https://twitter.com/MagusLibera).


End file.
